When She Got a Devastating Phone Call in the Middle of a Busy Store, a Stranger Rushed to Help Her in the Most Unforgettable Way

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Angels are all around us, hiding in plain sight--and sometimes, under crazy purple hair. Just ask Angel Mott, who, in the middle of her Black Friday holiday shopping, got one of the worst phone calls of her life: the news that her mother had died. Upon hearing the words while standing in the middle of a crowded Mills Fleet Farm store, Mott collapsed to the floor.

“I just kind of blacked out,” Mott, 31, told the Des Moines Register. “And I just started crying uncontrollably. I sat down on the shelves probably for about five minutes and just bawled.”

Suddenly, a stranger approached Mott and asked what was wrong. When she explained, the stranger--a kind woman with purple hair--sat down alongside her and wrapped her in a comforting hug as she wept. The thoughtful shopper then stayed with Mott all the way through to the checkout line, where she paid for her purchases in a daze and left the store.

“Some nice lady with black hair (I think) and purple highlights sat down with me and hugged me for about five minutes. She cried with me,” she wrote. “I would just like to thank her very much. Not one person stopped to see if I was OK. But her and her sister did, and I appreciate that more than they’ll ever know," she wrote.

Her answer came just a day later: “The lady you are looking for is my lovely sister Stephanie Uhlenberg. She just saw you sitting there crying and couldn’t just walk by," wrote a woman named Sara Ross. "Once she found out why you were crying, her heart just went out to you. Doesn’t matter if a stranger or not, no one needs to be alone when receiving news like that... We are both so sorry for your loss."

Uhlenberg--a mother of three whose hair is streaked purple to show her love for the Minnesota Vikings football team--then decided, upon hearing that Mott was looking for her, to attend her mother’s visitation at a local funeral home.

According to the Des Moines Register, as soon as Uhlenberg walked into the funeral home, Mott easily recognized those purple locks and flew to her for yet another hug.

Sounds like fate brought these two together. And their story proves something so important: Kindness is all around us, even at the most unexpected times.